The history of political science as a discipline has been an established field of scholarly examination for a long time. As Blatt notes in this thoroughly engrossing and provocative book, leaders in this field, especially Gunnell, have recently shifted its focus from “events in the history of political science” to treatments of that history.”1 The history of political science eventually began to put the discipline into historical perspective, mapping its evolution and assessing its status as it changed over time. Blatt uniquely places that mapping under a microscope to examine the role of racism and racialized thinking in that evolution. What she finds is a devastating indictment of the discipline’s failure to examine and overcome the embedded racial biases in its approaches to the study of politics.
Highlighting the historical role of race in U.S. institutions and politics is a little like shooting fish in a barrow, except for...